if we'd been seen----"

"Even if we hadn't wired or tried to get money, our presence alone
and our buying food would have aroused talk. I told everybody," the
young man continued, "that I was an artist and you were my sister,
and that passed all right--but if Kerissen has been making
inquiries----"

"I'm desperately glad we didn't go back toward Assiout," she thrust
in. "We'd have walked right into some trap of his!"

"Lord knows what we ought to have done! Lord knows what we ought to
do now!"

"Just keep on going," she encouraged. "We can't be very far from
Girgeh, can we?"

"I don't know," said Billy soberly. "It may be half a day or a whole
day more--you remember how vague that old woman was last night...!"
Bitterly he added, "And I'm afraid you've got a chump of a guide."

"I've the best one in the world!" she flashed indignantly.

But her assurance brought no solace to the young man's troubled
soul. He reflected that they could have taken a train the day
before. To be sure, he had not money enough for tickets to Luxor,
yet he had enough for two to Girgeh. But Arlee had shrunk from
entering a train in her dishevelled costume, fearful of watching
eyes and gossiping tongues, and had advised riding on to Girgeh,
where shops and banks would help them, and he had yielded apparently
to her desires, but in reality to his own secret self that clung to
every joyful contraband moment of this magic time with her.
Sincerely he had thought their danger ended.... But those trailing
horsemen--"_Brute!_" he raged dumbly at himself. "Dolt! Idiot!"

Anxiously Billy looked at Arlee. It was an ordeal of a ride.

They had ridden on in silence, occasionally glancing back over their
shoulders. At last Arlee said, quietly, "Do you see anything--over
there--to the left?"

Billy had been seeing it for fifteen minutes.

"Another horseman, isn't it?" he carelessly suggested.

"He seems to be riding the same way we are."

"Well, we've no monopoly of travel in this region."

She answered, after a moment, "There's another close behind him. I
just saw him on top of a little hill. I suppose they can see us?"

"Probably." Billy's face was grave. If they continued their winding
path in from the desert to the intervening hills that shut them from
the Nile valley, and the horsemen continued their course along the
base of those hills, they would soon meet.

"Do you mind speeding up a little?" he asked. "I'd rather like to
cross to